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    FreeMarker Manual - Create a configuration instance
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<a name="pgui_quickstart_createconfiguration"></a>Create a configuration instance  </h1>
    
    
<p>First you have to create a
        <tt style="color: #A03D10">freemarker.template.Configuration</tt> instance and
        adjust its settings. A <tt style="color: #A03D10">Configuration</tt> instance is a
        central place to store the application level settings of FreeMarker.
        Also, it deals with the creation and caching of pre-parsed
        templates.</p><p>Probably you will <i>do it only once</i> at the
        beginning of the application (possibly servlet) life-cycle:</p><div align="left" class="programlisting"><table bgcolor="#F8F8F8" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tr valign="top"><td height="1" width="1" bgcolor="black"><img src="docgen-resources/img/none.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0"/></td><td height="1" bgcolor="black"><img src="docgen-resources/img/none.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0"/></td><td height="1" width="1" bgcolor="black"><img src="docgen-resources/img/none.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0"/></td></tr><tr><td width="1" bgcolor="black"><img src="docgen-resources/img/none.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0"/></td><td><table bgcolor="#F8F8F8" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" border="0" width="100%" style="margin: 0px"><tr><td><pre style="margin: 0px">
Configuration cfg = new Configuration();

// Specify the data source where the template files come from. Here I set a
// plain directory for it, but non-file-system are possible too:
cfg.setDirectoryForTemplateLoading(new File(&quot;<i>/where/you/store/templates</i>&quot;));

// Specify how templates will see the data-model. This is an advanced topic...
// for now just use this:
cfg.setObjectWrapper(new DefaultObjectWrapper());

// Set your preferred charset template files are stored in. UTF-8 is
// a good choice in most applications:
cfg.setDefaultEncoding(&quot;UTF-8&quot;);

// Sets how errors will appear. Here we assume we are developing HTML pages.
// For production systems TemplateExceptionHandler.RETHROW_HANDLER is better.
cfg.setTemplateExceptionHandler(TemplateExceptionHandler.HTML_DEBUG_HANDLER);

// At least in new projects, specify that you want the fixes that aren't
// 100% backward compatible too (these are very low-risk changes as far as the
// 1st and 2nd version number remains):
cfg.setIncompatibleImprovements(new Version(2, 3, 20));  // FreeMarker 2.3.20&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 1pt"> </span></pre></td></tr></table></td><td width="1" bgcolor="black"><img src="docgen-resources/img/none.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0"/></td></tr><tr valign="top"><td height="1" width="1" bgcolor="black"><img src="docgen-resources/img/none.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0"/></td><td height="1" bgcolor="black"><img src="docgen-resources/img/none.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0"/></td><td height="1" width="1" bgcolor="black"><img src="docgen-resources/img/none.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0"/></td>      </tr>
</table>  </div>
<p>From now you should use this <i>single</i>
        configuration instance (i.e., its a singleton). Note however that if a
        system has multiple independent components that use FreeMarker, then
        of course they will use their own private
        <tt style="color: #A03D10">Configuration</tt> instances. Do not needlessly
        re-create configuration instances; it's expensive as you lose the
        caches.</p>  
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            FreeMarker Manual -- For FreeMarker 2.3.20
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